ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS
ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS
ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS
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<strong>ENVIRONMENTAL</strong> <strong>ETHICS</strong><br />
Article (2000 words): A Companion to the Philosophy of Technology, Blackwell 2007.<br />
By Thomas Søbirk Petersen: thomassp@ruc.dk<br />
Word-count: 2133 (without footnotes)<br />
Version: New 28/11 2006<br />
1. Introduction<br />
Our use of technology has changed and continues to change the natural environment. While<br />
technology – medicine, transportation technologies and information technology and so on – can<br />
help us to prosper, there is also no doubt that the production and use of technology can have a<br />
negative impact on the environment and therefore on us. The pollution of rivers, oceans and the air<br />
poses an immediate threat to the health of humans; and the build-up of greenhouse gases, depletion<br />
of the ozone layer, and deforestation may each pose a threat, not only to the health of humans, but<br />
also to the survival of the human species. On the other hand, innovation within technology can also<br />
be used to remove or mitigate some of these man-made threats, and to minimise the impact of some<br />
non-man-made threats such as huge meteors, volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis and diseases.<br />
Our impact on the natural environment, and the way in which this affects humans, other animals<br />
and plants, raises important ethical questions. These questions, which are often dealt with under the<br />
heading of environmental ethics, include: Is human welfare all that matters morally when we<br />
evaluate, say, deforestation or the elimination of a species? Should we aim to decrease the number<br />
of humans on our planet in order to make other species flourish? Should a company be allowed to<br />
open a mine in a national park? What ought we to do about global warming?<br />
The relevance of environmental ethics is obvious. Since the 1960s such ethics have had a more or<br />
less strong foothold in most societies. They are now part of the international political agenda, the<br />
Kyoto treaty being a clear example here. 1 Almost every political party and large company has<br />
formulated policies on treatment of the natural environment. 2 Furthermore, journals dedicated to<br />
environmental ethics have emerged, 3 as have NGOs like Greenpeace and Earth First.<br />
Environmental ethics is a multidisciplinary activity. It draws on expertise in physics, biology,<br />
economics, law, sociology, psychology and philosophy. Roughly speaking, we can distinguish<br />
between descriptive and normative environmental ethics. The descriptive aim is to describe and<br />
explain what attitudes people have to questions like those mentioned above. This part is usually<br />
1 The Kyoto Treaty is an agreement reached under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change<br />
(UNFCCC). The 164 countries (as of July 2006) which have ratified the Kyoto Protocol are, among other things,<br />
committed to reducing their emissions of carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases, or to engage in emission<br />
trading if they maintain or increase emissions of these gases. For details of the protocol see:<br />
http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/kpeng.html or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol<br />
2 Consult e.g. the UK Labour Party official website http://www.labour.org.uk/environment04. See e.g. www.shell.com<br />
(Shell’s official website) for examples of their views on environmental issues.<br />
3 E.g. Environmental Ethics, Environmental Values and Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics.<br />
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undertaken by sociologists and anthropologists. 4 The normative aim is to critically assess the<br />
attitudes people have on these issues. 5 This task depends on scientific knowledge and philosophical<br />
considerations about logic, value theory, normative ethical theory and the clarification of central<br />
concepts like those of welfare, value and nature. In line with the title of this Companion, the focus<br />
in this entry will be on some of the philosophical perspectives on environmental ethics. 6 In what<br />
follows, then, ‘environmental ethics’ refer to discussions of how humans ought to treat the built and<br />
natural environment. 7<br />
2. The axiology of environmental ethics<br />
Among philosophers and environmentalists, much discussion has centred on the problem of what<br />
matters morally in evaluating acts with an impact on the environment. Is it only the humans that<br />
matter, or is it also other sentient beings? Alternatively, should moral concern be extended to all<br />
living things and perhaps also to mountains or even ecosystems? These questions concern what we<br />
can call the axiology (or value theory) of environmental ethics. At first glance, this endeavour may<br />
seem to be of purely academic interest. But it is not. One’s view of what matters morally has a<br />
critical bearing on the way in which one will argue in discussions about the ethical aspects of<br />
pollution, global warming or the extinction of species. To some extent, it affects the conclusions<br />
one will reach. For instance, if one believes that all living things have value in themselves, a<br />
normative discussion about the preservation of a forest will not be wholly contingent on what effect<br />
preservation (or non-preservation) can be expected to have on human welfare.<br />
The axiological literature contains a great variety of positions, but these fall under three general<br />
headings: anthropocentrism, sentientism and ecologism. According to anthropocentrism (or humancentred<br />
ethics), 8 only humans have intrinsic value. 9 This means that humans should not care directly<br />
about non-human entities, although they may care if this will further their own interests (e.g. in<br />
respect of welfare or rights). Thus anthropocentrists are only concerned with the non-human part of<br />
nature in an instrumental way: the pollution of a river is only of moral concern if it sets back the<br />
interests of humans, so if the fish in a river die, that is only morally problematic if people are<br />
thereby harmed in some way – e.g. by eating them. Note, however, that it is wrong to assume that<br />
anthropocentrism readily justifies the pollution of rivers or the destruction of wilderness – at any<br />
rate, as long as we agree (as we surely should) that wilderness can bring humans many deep, lasting<br />
and wonderful experiences.<br />
A central challenge for anthropocentrism is to give a convincing answer to the question: why are<br />
humans all that matter? One answer is to say that human welfare is alone in having value in itself<br />
4<br />
See e.g. Kempton, Boster, and Hartley Environmental Values in American Culture, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997.<br />
5<br />
See e.g. Environmental Ethics: An Anthology, Light & Rolston (eds.), Blackwell, 2002 or Environmental Ethics, Elliot<br />
(ed.), Oxford University Press, 1995.<br />
6<br />
For an excellent introduction to the debate about the scope and different varieties of environmental ethics, see Light<br />
‘Environmental Ethics’, A Companion to Applied Ethics, Frey and Wellman (eds.), Blackwell Publishing, 633-49, 2003.<br />
7<br />
For a defence of the view that cities and not only the non-built part of the environment should fall under the heading of<br />
environmental ethics, see Light ‘Urban Ecological Citizenship’, Journal of Social Philosophy, Vol. 34:1, 2003, 44-63.<br />
8<br />
Anthropcentrism is a central part of western Christian thinking: see Genesis I:26-8. Modern adherents of<br />
anthropcentrism include Ferry: The New Ecological Order, The University of Chicago Press, 1995 (originally published<br />
as Le nouvel order écologique: L’arbre, l’ animal et l’homme, Bernard Grasset, 1992) and Frey, Rights, Killing and<br />
Suffering, Blackwell, 1983.<br />
9<br />
An important issue that divides antropocentrists (as well as sentientists) is the moral status of future generations.<br />
Should the welfare of future generations be taken into account in environmental ethics, and if so how? Should their<br />
welfare be subject to a kind of discount rate? For a discussion of these questions, see Parfit, Reasons and Persons,<br />
Oxford University Press, 1984, and Broome Counting the cost of GLOBAL WARMING, The White Horse Press, 1992.<br />
2
ecause humans have a morally relevant feature that differentiates humans from other beings. That<br />
feature might be rationality. The challenges to this kind of answer are many. For instance, it follows<br />
from the view that humans who are not rational (newborn infants, people with dementia, et al.) do<br />
not have moral value in themselves. Furthermore, some animals, like apes or horses, seem to be<br />
more rational than a one-day-old infant, so why not include these animals?<br />
Another answer is to say that only humans have value in themselves, because they belong to the<br />
species Homo sapiens. But this seems like a form of unjustified discrimination. If human welfare,<br />
say, is what matters morally, then what is so special about humans that we should only take the<br />
welfare of humans into account? Why not include animals that have the neurophysiological<br />
capacity to experience welfare? 10 Considerations like this have let some to adopt sentientism, which<br />
claims that sentient beings capable of enjoying welfare (and the opposite) are the only subjects that<br />
have intrinsic moral worth. 11 When it comes to the value of the non-sentient part of nature,<br />
sentientism coincides with anthropocentrism, as both positions imply that the non-sentient part of<br />
nature only has instrumental value.<br />
Some objections to sentientism ask how we know that animals have welfare and, in keeping with<br />
one way of defining welfare, are able to feel pleasure and pain. But although we cannot directly<br />
experience the pain or pleasure of others, including other animals, we can observe whether they<br />
behave in a way that is evidence of pain or pleasure. Alternatively, from our scientific knowledge of<br />
the nervous system we can infer that all mammals and birds with a nervous system like ours can<br />
experience pleasure and pain. As we have no reason to claim that plants can feel pain, humans have,<br />
according to the sentientist, no direct moral obligations towards plants. 12 Others have argued that<br />
the notion of harm to an entity is not captured properly by assuming that the entity in question must<br />
have the capacity to experience pain or a reduced level of pleasure. On this view it makes perfect<br />
sense to claim that a plant can be harmed if, say through pollution or vandalism, it is prevented from<br />
flourishing according to its telos (Greek telos = goal) or its potential for biological development. 13<br />
Dissatisfaction with anthropocentrism and sentientism has let to a variety of positions falling under<br />
the general heading ‘ecologism’. Ecologists believe that, apart from humans and animals, we should<br />
also be concerned with nature for its own sake. Biocentrism (life-centred-ethics) implies that only<br />
living organisms have inherent value. 14 Ecocentrism (earth-centred ethics) implies, roughly<br />
speaking, that entities such as rainforests, rivers and mountains have inherent value. 15 Some<br />
ecocentrists believe that the whole biosphere has value. 16<br />
A serious challenge for ecologist is to infer, in a plausible way, from the sensible-looking idea that<br />
trees and ecosystems can have setbacks according to their natural potential for development (thus,<br />
in one sense, being harmed) to the claim that they have intrinsic moral value. By analogy, my<br />
computer can breakdown, and an aeroplane can crash, and in that sense they can be said to have<br />
10 For criticism of anthropocentrism see e.g. Singer, ‘Equality for Animals’ in Practical Ethics, Oxford University<br />
Press.<br />
11 See e.g. Singer, ‘Environmental Ethics’, in Practical Ethics.<br />
12<br />
Ibid.<br />
13<br />
See e.g. Attfield, ‘The Good of Trees’, Journal of Value Inquiry, 15, 1981, pp. 35-54 and Taylor in Respect for<br />
Nature, , Princeton University Press, 1986<br />
14<br />
Influential biocentrists include Taylor, (1986) Respect for Natureand A. Schweitzer Civilisation and Ethics, 2d ed.<br />
1929.<br />
15 See e.g. Elliot, ‘Faking Nature’, in Environmental Ethics, (ed.) Elliot, Oxford University Press, 1995.<br />
16 See e.g. Lovelock Gaia – A New Look at Life on Earth, Oxford University Press, 1978.<br />
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een harmed. But would it follow from these considerations that the computer, or aeroplane, has<br />
value in itself? Elaborating this challenge, we might add that it is not at all easy to know when a<br />
part of nature has been harmed. Is grass harmed when a lawn is mowed? If the grass is harmed,<br />
because it has value in itself, does it follow that we have a moral reason not to mow the lawn? And<br />
how, in any case, could be argued that only natural entities have moral value in themselves? What<br />
about artefacts like paperclips or pools of spilt milk? Can they also be harmed? Again, if we say<br />
that they can, do we have a moral reason not to harm (bend out of shape?) paperclips?<br />
3. Normative theories and environmental ethics<br />
In order to have a fully developed environmental ethics, it is necessary to combine one’s preferred<br />
axiology with a normative theory that tells us how to act. For axiology is concerned with what kinds<br />
of thing are of value, and why, and not, at least directly, with how we ought to act. In other words,<br />
axiology points to kinds of things that we have a moral reason to be concerned about, but it has<br />
nothing to offer on the question how we ought to act all things considered. And although it is not<br />
always obvious, people who engage in normative debate about the environment often base their<br />
reasoning on some kind of normative theory which, in more general terms, tells us how we ought to<br />
act. Normative theories are usually divided into three categories: consequentialism, deontology and<br />
virtue ethics. Consequentialism is the view that an agent is morally required to perform the act with<br />
the best consequences. Many consequentialists are utilitarians. They focus on welfare and insist that<br />
the best consequences are those containing maximum welfare. But consequentialism can be<br />
combined with any of the axiologies mentioned above. 17 A biocentric consequentialist could, for<br />
example, claim that the best outcome of an action or policy is the one in which there is the most<br />
fully realised equality (of potential to flourish) between humans and other living creatures. 18<br />
Deontology, on the other hand, is the view that certain types of act (e.g. harming innocents, or<br />
perhaps, rendering a species extinct) are morally forbidden even when the performance of those acts<br />
would bring about the best consequences. In principle, deontologists can disagree over whether the<br />
deontic rules function as absolute prohibitions 19 or are somewhat weaker and can be broken if<br />
enough is at stake. They can also, of course, dispute the kinds of action that are morally forbidden.<br />
And like consequentialism, deontology can be combined with any the axiologies sketched above. In<br />
the literature on environmental ethics, deontology has been combined with anthropocentrism 20 and<br />
with biocentrism. 21 A biocentric deontologist might claim that we are morally forbidden from<br />
killing living organisms intentionally.<br />
In virtue theory the focus is not so much on what kinds of act are right, but what a virtuous person<br />
would do. In environmental ethics, the virtue ethicist might claim that the moral evaluation of<br />
something like deforestation cannot be based exclusively on consideration of what consequences<br />
that would have, or on the question whether there is a constraint on acts which lead to deforestation.<br />
Instead we must look at the character of the person who performs the act. If deforestation is a result<br />
17<br />
This also goes for utilitarianism! See e.g. Sprigge’s utilitarian defence of ecocentrism in ‘Are there Intrinsic Values in<br />
Nature?’ Journal for Applied Philosophy 4.1, 1987: pp. 21-28. Reprinted in Applied Philosophy: Morals and<br />
Metaphysics in Contemporary Debate, eds. Almond and Hill (London and New York: Routledge, 1991, pp. 37-44.<br />
18<br />
The movement known as ‘left biocentrism’ is, as far as I can see, a consequentialist position which, unlike<br />
utilitarianism, says that we ought to be concerned about the distribution of what is valuable. For references to literature<br />
on left biocentrism see Curry Ecological Ethics: An introduction, Polity Press 2006.<br />
19<br />
The german philosopher Immanuel Kant is a well-known defender of this position: see his: Grundlegung zur<br />
Metaphysik der Sitten, 1785.<br />
20<br />
See e.g. Ferry (1992).<br />
21<br />
See e.g. Taylor (1984).<br />
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of vandalism or vicious egoism, it is the kind of action a virtuous person would not engage in.<br />
Ecofeminism can be interpreted as a kind of environmental virtue ethics. One can see this when its<br />
defenders suggest that our despoliation of the environment points up problems with ‘male<br />
character’, with its tendency to dominate, and with its limited capacity for caring and appreciation<br />
of the aesthetic beauty of nature. 22<br />
This overview of the ethical positions available in environmental ethics will, I hope, make it easier<br />
to understand why people disagree over the ethics of the environment. A major source of<br />
disagreement is, of course, scientific dispute over empirical facts – e.g. the causes and consequences<br />
of ozone depletion. Is depletion of the ozone layer caused by human activity, or just part of a natural<br />
process in which human emission of carbon dioxide does not matter at all? But as philosophical<br />
discussion in environmental ethics has shown, there is plenty of room for ethical debate even if<br />
people agree on the relevant empirical data. Those engaged with environmental issues might<br />
benefit, therefore, from raised awareness of their axiological and normative commitments. These<br />
tend to be less apparent than the science, and in environmental matters, as elsewhere, the first step<br />
towards a fruitful dialogue is usually to locate the source of disagreement.<br />
22 For an example of ecofeminism, see Plumwood, ‘Nature, Self, and Gender: Feminism, Environmental Philosophy,<br />
and the Critique of Rationalism’ in Elliot (ed.) Enviromental Ethics, 1995.<br />
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